


blessed to the nines

by chromaberrant



Series: shades of reed [dbh oneshots] [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2020-09-27 23:21:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20416000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chromaberrant/pseuds/chromaberrant
Summary: Collection of oneshots and threadfics cross-posted from my Twitter. Reed900, idiot sandwich, and their horny (and not so horny) shenanigans.Additional tags included in chapter notes.Current chapters include: (E) ot3 overstim; (E) G9 somnophilia; (gen) insomnia; (gen) urban fantasy fusion; (T) RK900 has Gavin's back on a bad night out. Check chapters for additional tags.(Marked complete, but ongoing so long as I get the recurrent urge to wreck Gavin. :3c)





	1. G1700 - overstimulation

**Author's Note:**

> Me? using my pun of a username for title in absence of any actually sensible ideas? You bet. ;)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> praise kink, bit of creampie, spitroasting, hint of mirror sex if only Gavin could keep his eyes open.

He's barely awake after getting like three orgasms all but ripped out of him but Nines still has his cock in him: he's holding all of Reed's weight up against his own chest, one arm draped under Gavin's and hand teasing a nipple, the other gently fondling his spent dick.

They're kneeling on the bed, facing a large mirror. Behind them, Connor lounges against the headboard, watching. Recording. He has an excellent view of Nines' sculpted back flexing, as well as the cum leaking down Reed's thighs out of his stretched hole. Reed can scarcely make him out in the reflection, tears blurring his vision.

Nines is slow but relentless. "Keep your eyes on yourself," he orders. "watch how gorgeous you are when you're completely at my mercy. Will you be good for me? Will you cum for me one more time?"

"I can't," Reed answers, way past pretending it's not on a whine.

He's wrung out, boneless, pumped full of both Nines' and Connor’s cum, and buzzing head to toe with pleasure that he thinks he'll feel for the rest of his days. Possibly because this might be his last, if Nines continues to try and milk him of all he's worth. Even Reed's soul feels untethered, like it might be all he's got left to give to his partners.

Local man gave up the ghost for thirsty androids. What a way to go.

His eyes snap open when the mattress dips and Nines rebalances, shifting them a little. Connor is standing in front of them now, awe and fondness in his expression. He touches the edge of Gavin's jaw, traces his parted lips, coaxes his mouth open.

The fingers of his other hand pull his lower lip down and then slip onto his tongue when he licks them. Gavin works them over with barely any conscious thought. It feels good to suck on the long digits, to watch Connor's pupils widen almost comically. Him and his oral fixation.

Every touch, every point of contact feels divine, on the verge of too much. He's floating on pleasure, carried by its tide. It feels incredible to give in, to let his lovers do with him what they please, to surrender himself whole and put his trust in their hands completely.

When Connor replaces his fingers with the head of his cock, Gavin moans and fumbles one hand to grip Connor’s hip, pull him closer. He opens wide and takes as much as he can in one slow, enthusiastic drag.

He's so relaxed his gag reflex doesn't even try to kick in when he takes a deep breath and sucks Connor all the way in, throat vibrating with a muffled moan.

Connor is speaking, breathless and delighted above him, but his words don't register. Gavin works his lips and tongue as much as he can around the shaft filling him, humming happily.

Connor's fingers are gentle as they dance across his face, wiping his tears and running through his stubble and hair. He follows the guiding grip at the back of his head, pulls back to breathe, then bobs back down.

Nines is murmuring praise into his ear, and his hand tightens around Gavin's cock where it filled out a little again.

Gavin's breath catches.

"You're doing wonderful, kitten," Nines encourages, pressing the words into the skin behind Gavin's ear, "so generous for us. We're so proud of you. You can keep going, love."

He punctuates every pet name with a measured thrust and an insistent pass of his fingers over a nipple. Gavin doesn't have it in him to stop the helpless keening this draws out of him, or the way his eyes roll back into his head when Nines next squeezes his cock.

His fourth orgasm is entirely dry, and hits him like a wave, pulling him under for long, blissful seconds.

He comes to feeling Nines' dick twitch and spill inside him once more, and shivers uncontrollably. Nines' moan is muffled next to him: his mouth is busy bringing Connor to completion as well. Eights gasps under the ministrations of Nines' hand and lips, and pulls back in time to come on both his lovers' faces.

They fall to the sheets wrapped in one another, uncaring for the wet spot for now. Gavin drifts in and out of consciousness, catching snapshots of intimacy in between long moments of weightless exhaustion: the androids cleaning one another, trading kisses and interfacing. The two of them wiping him clean, moving his weary limbs between gentle hands.

Connor pressing warm lube and a thick plug into his entrance — "keep it in, don't make a mess" — and holding him in his arms as Nines changes the sheets.

He sleeps the sleep of the righteously fucked out, unconcerned with anything beyond the bodies of his lovers around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [here's the tweeter](https://twitter.com/chromaberrant). I can also be found in the [New ERA discord server](https://discord.gg/GqvNzUm). ✨


	2. G9 - somnophilia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trans Gavin, consensual somno, sweet morning sex. -w-

Gavin gets absurdly wet at night. 

He never remembers if he's been dreaming, but every now and then his sleep pants are sticky in the morning — and when he gets up and spreads his legs, it just... gushes out of him.

Those are generally good mornings.

Then he gets together with Nine, and the first time he wakes up feeling he android's heavy gaze on him, and specifically the slick getting smeared on his thighs as he walks, bleary-eyed, to the bathroom... He gives it some thought, and yeah — these mornings can be even better.

After Nine eats him out for breakfast and looks up from between his legs, face wet and eyes dazed, Gavin blurts, "y'know, next time I'm like this, don't wait for me to wake up."

Nine makes a sound that's half static and comes into his own hand.

———

It's a few weeks before Nine spends the night again, and Gavin kind of forgot what he said, but Nine sure as hell didn't.

So when at the crack of dawn the android is roused from stasis by the tiniest breathy moan, he gets hard even before his system catches up to speed. Gavin is wriggling on the bed, hips gyrating ever so slightly, seeking friction. His breathing is deep but irregular, small hitches and tiny sounds trapped in his throat.

Nine sits up, absolutely transfixed. He watches Gavin's mouth part, lower lip pushed out by his tongue.

Air catches somewhere in the back of the man's throat and comes out in an inelegant snort. Nine giggles, stupidly endeared.

He lays a careful peck on the corner of Gavin's eye and moves down the bed, under the covers. This close, he can _smell_ Gavin, the heady scent of his sex — and traces of Nine's own.

He pushes Gavin gently around until he's on his side, one leg pulled up. The crotch of his shorts is soaked as soon as Nine parts his thighs, the android's cum from last night leaking out with a fresh wave of slick.

He traces a careful finger through the mess; earns a sweet little keen from Gavin when he reaches his dick.

He's so warm and wet, softer than he ever gets during the day; Nine shakes with the want to suck him awake, but he can't at this angle, and will likely wake him up by moving. Instead, he carefully pushes two fingers into Gavin and moans at the way he clenches around them. He gathers as much slick as he can and spreads it on his own member as he moves back up the bed.

He positions himself carefully, draped along Gavin's back, and sinks into him, torturously slow, careful not to wake him just yet.

He feels overwhelmed, swept under by a sudden wave of feeling. To be allowed _this_ close — the realisation of such a staggering level of intimacy nearly sends him over right then.

He's whimpering, hips stuttering in tiny movements and nose buried behind Gavin's ear as he tries to wrap his mind around all he's feeling. His hand finds Gavin's between the man's legs, and he twines their fingers together to rub his dick.

Gavin moans, still quiet, but longer and louder than before — his breath comes quicker. "Nine," he whispers, and opens his eyes. He moves his hips back, feels the length of him pressed inside, and cries out. "oh my god, Nine!"

His hand moves with purpose, leading Nine's along, and he clenches down hard, coming with a loud keen and pulling the android into an orgasm immediately after. They come together in a wave of white pleasure, lost to everything but each other.

They lay tangled after, Gavin panting and Nine whirring into the quiet of the pre-dawn. "Holy shit," Gavin says.

"Good morning," Nine mumbles into his shoulder and moves to pull out.

"Wait," Gavin says, hand fumbling to grip Nine's hip. "Stay."

Well. That's another interesting thought.

Nine stops his cock from softening fully and settles against his lover. It's not the most comfortable setup, but the sense of closeness fills him with a warmth he's never felt quite so intensely.

"Thank you," he whispers, "that was incredible."

"Yeah, it was." Gavin turns slightly, coaxes Nine into a soft kiss.

"I love you."

Nine's eyes snap open. Did — 

Gavin tenses against his chest, but meets his eye with a determination that sends Nine reeling. He said that — he said it first.

"I love you too," Nine responds, and it's the easiest thing to say.

They share a smile that feels meaningful; a promise of more mornings like this.


	3. gen - lost sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to find yourself in a world after a revolution. Sometimes it's easier to find someone else, instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all ever get emo on main and grab the nearest insomniac rat to project onto?  
yeah. ;3c
> 
> (NB Nines, no pairing, sfw.)

Gavin is exhausted.

His hands tremble and something in his chest quivers. The acrid smoke he sucks hungrily down does little to banish the full-bodied unease that lingers after yet another nightmare.

He hums a steady tone low in his throat, trying to offset the nasty feeling with a vibration in his sternum he can control. It helps, just a little.

The early summer air is mild against his clammy skin, but he still feels cold. He hates it.

Another drag from his cigarette is hot in his throat, but it's not enough to warm him.

He goes back inside, takes a scalding hot shower. He comes out feeling better, but nowhere near soothed enough to attempt sleep yet.

He pulls on some clothes and his running shoes.

The neighborhood is peaceful. He pushes himself to run faster than he's used to until his breath comes short and strained and he finds himself in the vicinity of the old commercial strip, now mostly taken over by offices and diners.

He comes to a stop and sits down right in the middle of the pavement, finding an odd comfort in acting out like this. It's not like there's anyone around to give a shit about him.

The comfort turns into bitter loneliness.

At least no one can see him get teary, at this hour.

That's when he hears it.

Music.

Somewhere nearby, a piano is playing.

He can't put his finger on the melody, but it feels familiar, like something long forgotten yet bound to some specific feeling ingrained in the marrow of his bones. It ebbs and flows, changing from song to song, and Gavin is on his feet and walking toward the sound before he knows what he's doing.

He freezes when he catches sight of the source.

It's an old piano set up under an awning in front of a restaurant. The player — 

A proud, rigid figure sits on the stool, hands dancing on the keyboard to the rhythm of their LED circling yellow and blue. Gavin can tell the piano is slightly out of tune, and the android hesitates every now and then, the flow stuttering between passes.

It hits him between the eyes and his heart clenches. A machine wouldn't make mistakes, if it thought to touch a street piano at three o’clock in the morning at all.

There's soul in the music, and lyrics come to him, unbidden.

"I don't wanna die," he intones under his breath as the music swells, "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all —"

Shit — the android's hands lift, the last of the notes ringing out in the air. They heard Gavin sing. They turn and their eyes meet.

"...Carry on, carry on," he hums, barely above a whisper and off key, face burning.

“As if nothing really matters," the android returns with a small smile that doesn't reach their eyes. They reel Gavin in, and he follows, almost helplessly.

Up close, he recognizes the face. Almost identical to Connor’s but for the eyes and the sternness of their brow. He catches a glimpse of a model number on the jacket draped on the stool next to the android, only part of “RK” visible on the folded fabric. It looks dusty, a few threads coming loose at the edges; their dress shoes and dark grey jeans show similar signs of wear. Only the black shirt with an unusually high collar looks mostly untouched.

The RK’s design speaks of power, of intimidation, but as Gavin watches their eyes and hands dance across the keyboard, he reads a spirit as lost as himself in the stranger.

He blames the insomnia for the sudden sentimentality.

They don’t speak with each other, except by singing along to whatever song the android’s fingers drift into. Gavin sags against the side of the piano, feeling weariness catch up with him as the first hints of dawn bleed into the world.

He jolts upright when silence falls and he realizes he’s almost dozed off where he’s standing. The android is looking down, hands folded in their lap, but the hint of a smile is back on their lips. When they don’t make another move for what feels like long minutes, suspended outside time, Gavin gathers himself. It’s rude to stare, his half-delirious mind supplies. He feels ready to crash into bed and actually sleep for once.

“This was cool,” he says, words slurred. “I’ll see you around.”

If he gets a response, it goes over his head. He drifts home on autopilot, crashing on the couch with his face nuzzled into his cat’s fur. 

When he wakes to his alarm clock going off, he’s still barely functional, yet feeling soothed in a way he’s never felt after a nightmare interrupted his sleep. The memory of the impromptu concert floats in and out of his mind all day, feeling too surreal to have been anything but a dream. 

Perhaps that’s all it was.

He thinks of hesitant fingers and pale eyes when he goes to bed that night, and sleeps soundly for the first time in weeks. 

If he gets up a little early and makes a detour to walk by that piano before the city truly wakes, he tells himself it’s just to stretch his legs. And if his heart skips a beat when he spots a glimmer of blue on the music rack and picks up a discarded LED — well. Tomorrow is his day off. It won’t matter if he gets up in the dead of the night to go for a run again.


	4. G9 - gen - supernatural AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this piece](https://twitter.com/s_peachxv/status/1172634752484040710?s=20) by [Peach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackberry_peachx), I bring you an urban fantasy DBH au. :3c

When the city sleeps, a different kind of life comes out to roam Detroit.

It's not exactly a secret. Anyone you pass by in broad daylight might be a creature of the night, going about their business that the orderly society demands they perform to be left in relative peace. 

It's in the waning twilight, however, that you can meet the most interesting individuals. Those who walk the edge between shadow and light. Those playing both sides to their benefit. Those with their eyes cast on what is most worth knowing.

Nines prides himself on being one such individual — even if he plies his trade out of the public eye entirely, choosing instead to put his Cyberlife-given and self-made tools to use in the digital world. 

It allows him to watch nearly everything that goes on in the city — in any city, should he choose to uproot himself and move, but he likes Detroit. It was here that his kind rose up and demanded to live for themselves, and where the upheaval of allowing one kind of non-human life into society promptly invited others.

It made life easier for the old ones. Those who could take care of themselves, anyway.

Those who couldn't had to find allies.

It is a very interesting time to be alive, certainly. Knowing things — knowing _people_ — pays off.

Nines knows many while few know him. Oh, he _is known_ — but for his power and influence, not as himself. He keeps it that way.

And he takes great interest in others who elude his many eyes and ears, more than in anything else.

One such person is his current target, and the reason he is, for once, physically present outside of his little base of operations. 

The man is sitting at the bar counter of a small cafe owned by a djinn that Nines has briefly dealt with before. The establishment doubles as a cozy little bar and a hangout for old ones of all kinds, though few hold powers that would put them on Nines' radar.

He slides into a seat just around the corner from his mark, an inconspicuous enough distance in the bustling space. Having his back to the large windows is a bit unnerving, but he covered his tracks well. No one who would attack him knows what he looks like, anyway. 

He focuses on the man, who doesn't acknowledge him beyond a brief once-over. He is making small talk with the bartender in a language Nines identifies as Italian, though oddly accented. His voice has a pleasing timbre, Nines notes with a hint of surprise.

Up close, he sees that his gamble was right: the elusive stalker weaving in and out of the very edges of Nines' view across the city, wherever there was something noteworthy to watch, does indeed wear the same face as DPD sergeant in the homicide division, Gavin Reed. When Nines first noticed the near-identical build of the two, he put little stock in the observation. It was when he discovered that Reed visited this particular bar, only to fade into the shadows on nights when the stalker haunted Nines’ feeds, that the android decided to make his approach.

He idles for a bit, his gaze tracking through the interior, but his focus is squarely on Reed. It’s… refreshing, to be out among living people, hiding in plain sight. He forgot the thrill of it.

The bartender moves away, hailed by someone down the bar. Nines is hit with a sense that his subtle ogling has been reciprocated all along.

Oh, this one is good.

"Can I buy you a drink?" he asks, emboldened. He knows his delivery is too flat, too abrupt, his demeanor in screaming contrast to his words and what they might otherwise imply — but he doesn't care. It's a message of its own. He wants to see how Reed will receive it.

The man in question watches him with eyes that are too sharp — Nines remembers being observed like this, back when he still walked the streets with the rest of them. It's the gaze of a predator.

Good thing Nines is one, too. He wonders if Reed sees him for the threat he can be, despite his lack of ability to emote, to mold his body language into meaning.

"Get me a coffee," Gavin Reed says. There is intrigue in the curl of his mouth. "Don't see much plastic in this hole in the wall."

Nines catches the eye of another bartender, places the order. He returns his attention to his target. “I don’t make it a habit. Watching from afar is more my speed.” He attempts a smile, a bare twitch of the corner of his mouth. “Some nights demand a more personal touch, however.”

Reed laughs at that, sharp canines flashing in the soft frame of his beard. Inexplicably, Nines wonders how it would feel against his skin. He was designed for endurance rather than sensitivity, but his hands…

He shunts the thought for later examination.

“That how you want this to go, mr. Robot?” Reed is grinning at him, cocky and calculating. “I don’t usually play ball with your type.”

“What type might that be?” Nines tilts his head to the side and up, letting the stony visage his creators gifted him with work its questionable charm. 

“Shit at pickup lines.” Reed nods to the barista when a plain cup of dark, aromatic brew is placed before him. “Good thing you came out here, though. Won’t get any better if all you do is… watch from afar.” 

A break in the clouds outside lets cold moonlight into the bar, the silver somehow penetrating the ambient glow surrounding them. Gavin lifts his drink, steam rising lazily over its rim. Half of his face is shadowed, and for the briefest second, his eye flashes with inhuman shine.

“Thanks for the coffee,” he drawls, and Nines finds himself hopelessly lured by the image he is presented with. 

“Good thing indeed,” he murmurs. 

He lets the man — the werewolf? Reed bears some markers of lycanthropy, but the moon is full, and here he is, seemingly unaffected — enjoy his drink in companionable silence. He lets his eyes roam, now that they’ve exchanged words, and is reminded of more he’s been missing out on by secluding himself. 

Reed cuts a handsome figure in the shifting half-light. He watches Nines watch him, gaze equal parts wary and indulgent. His file in the DPD claims he's nearing forty, but whatever his true nature, it must keep him in better shape than most: his hair is thick and luscious, the skin of his knuckles and around his eyes marred with scars rather than age. The facial hair might be an effort to look his declared years, and it's doing its job — though the tunnel piercing in the ear that Nines can see undermines that. 

Something long forgotten hums to life inside Nines. He lets his analyses and scans fall away, and simply drinks in the sight in front of him: the strong arms, the broad chest; the thick neck framed by an unbuttoned shirt collar. It's all infuriatingly attractive. 

Although Reed seems to all but preen at the attention, he eventually puts down his cup, half empty already. "Looked your fill yet?" he asks, turning to face the android fully. Nines doesn't hide the way his eyes follow the roll of his shoulders, the stretch of his shirt over his frame.

"Maybe," he concedes. "This opportunity has been a long time coming. I'd hate for it to go to waste." 

Something hardens in Reed's expression as he nods to himself. "You're Nines, aren't you." 

The complete lack of surprise irks Nines, even as it strokes his ego. "Very astute, Gavin Reed." 

The man scoffs. "Of course you know me."

"No, I do not," Nines offers easily. "But I want to. We could both benefit, if we were to establish… a partnership." 

"Like what?" Reed is now wary, voice that much closer to a growl. "You keep track of me, safe in whatever basement you crawled out of? Demand I dirty my hands for you? You know I'm a man of the law, right?"

Nines feels a twinge of annoyance at the accusation, keenly aware of several sets of eyes landing on him at Reed's agitated tone. "I watch your back, point you in the most useful direction. In return, you be my eyes and ears where I can't reach by network," he says, pointedly calm. "I do not violate the law any more than you do, Sergeant." 

"And if I tell you to fuck off?"

"Then we both miss out." Nines' posture remains exactly as rigid as it's been all evening, but he turns in his seat to face the bar rather than his company. "No harm, no foul."

"Just like that, hm?" Some of Gavin's former humor returns. He recognizes Nines' gambit, knows he will walk away from this confrontation one step closer to being a threat to the android — besides being an unknown one right here and now, exposed, in the physical world.

"As close to _just_ as people like us can get," Nines admits. 

He doesn't look Reed's way when the man downs the rest of his coffee and stands up. He keeps track of him easily, but damn near startles when he feels a warm hand grip his waist, arm draping across his lower back as Reed crosses behind him and leans in to say, in a low voice that has no business being this suggestive, "You know how to find me."

Nines twists, but the man has already moved back a step. He slings a leather jacket over his shoulder. "It's been nice, seeing you. Thanks for the coffee," he repeats with a wink that he puts his entire face into, and saunters away, deeper into the bar.

Nines taps into local networks, careless in his haste. He catches sight of Reed's figure reflected in a car window through a street cam outside the alley where the bar's back entrance opens, and watches as the silhouette ripples with magic, leaving a slender quadruped in its place.

Fascinating. 

Nines delights in the thrill that Gavin Reed's invitation elicited. Tonight has been… unexpected, in a way, and more than he had hoped for.

He tips the barkeep and returns home.

It's been a while since he had something to prove.


	5. G9 - T - breaking the ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: non-consensual drug use, very mildly implied past abuse. 
> 
> Pre-relationship. Gavin's night takes a sharp turn south, but he knows who to turn to.

Gavin's drink gets spiked. Part of him is flattered, part of him is somewhere in the vicinity of ironic gratitude that he knows the first symptoms well enough to act on them. Mostly, he's terrified. He has minutes before he'll comply with every demand made of him.

He can't go puke in the restrooms, or he'll be cornered. He needs to get out, and he needs support. But he didn't tell anyone about his sad, desperate bar crawl, and Tina is on a date...

His finger lands on the number of his new stick-up-the-ass robot partner.

They don't have that kind of relationship, but Gavin thinks — hopes — that he can trust the robot to keep him safe even off duty. (And, if he's otherwise occupied with whatever passes for social life for someone like RK900, Gavin gives little enough of a shit to intrude on it.)

"Detective Reed," comes the frosty greeting.

"Hey, uh. I need help, Nines."

"And you are asking me?"

Gavin snorts. "Yeah. Listen, I got something slipped in my drink. I'm not gonna be thinking for myself for much longer. Talk me through going home, or someone else will."

"Accessing your location now. An autocab will be with you in about three and a half minutes. Leave the club and turn left. Keep walking. Do not hang up."

"Okay, google," Gavin snickers and elbows his way towards the exit. "Are you doing that Big Brother thing and watching me?"

"I am."

Gavin blanks for a second.

"You are being followed. Keep moving."

"Yeah," Gavin breathes, feeling the cold grip of fear in his gut at the same time as the sickening fog of the drug blurs the edges of his vision. "Nines, talk to me."

"I am rerouting a closer cab. Stay in sight of the entrance when you make it to the street. The car should be pulling up— dodge left!"

Gavin ducks, nearly falling to his knees, and someone stumbles forward where he was a second before.

"Eyes on the door. Do not stop."

"Yes," Gavin mumbles. His legs feel wooden, but the exit is getting closer, so muscle memory must be carrying him still. Nines' voice drones in his ear, words bleeding together and pulling Gavin ahead.

There's an autocab idling by the curb. Its doors open when Gavin comes close. He stumbles inside.

He thinks he hears praise from the speakers of his phone before it slips from his fingers. He grunts in protest, but his hand doesn't cooperate well enough to bring it back to his ear.

"Take deep breaths," Nines' voice rings suddenly all around him. Gavin yelps, then obeys.

The lights and colors outside the car blur into a dizzying kaleidoscope, snatching bits and pieces of Gavin's consciousness with them.

Dimly, he thinks he's glad he's getting ever closer to that even voice that wraps around him like something physical and comforting.

* * *

He snaps awake feeling both drunk and hungover. Everything is bright and hard around him.

He is not in his bedroom.

He sits up in spite of the nausea, panic overwhelming discomfort for a moment. Was he with someone? He's on the floor — barren, clean — and scrambles back against an equally barren wall, one hand fumbling between his legs. He’s dressed, and feels normal enough, aching back and sickness aside...

Something stiff and white and smelling like faux leather that's never been worn slides off his shoulder and he gapes at the glowing blue triangle and ANDROID printed in silver on black for a moment.

"Settle down," comes a command in a familiar tone. Gavin’s eyes snap up.

The only thing breaking the monotony of the small white room is RK900, standing at ease in a corner opposite Gavin and looking down at him with an expression somewhere to the left of his usual resting bitch face.

"What the fuck," Gavin groans, voice rasping and not his own.

RK hesitates, then opens a door to his left and disappears for a moment. He emerges with a cup of water before Gavin can begin to rein in his racing thoughts. "Here," he says, extending the cup awkwardly from five feet away, "drink this."

Gavin's head is pounding, his guts are staging a revolt, and every muscle in his body is sore. "C'mere with that, dipshit," he groans when his heart slows down and he can find his voice again. "My legs aren't working. What the fuck happened?" He squints at the robot. "Did we fuck? Tell me before I'm awake enough to be horrified by the idea."

"We— did not," RK says. Was that a stutter? Gavin can't muster enough brainpower to analyze that when the water finally makes it within his reach and he downs it carefully, wary of his unsettled stomach. "You called me when you realized you had been drugged."

"Shit, that happened," Gavin mutters. "So what am I doing in this— storage unit?"

"You lost consciousness in the taxi. I elected to have it bring you to my residence, so that I could ensure your safety until morning."

"You live like this?!"

"This apartment meets all my needs—"

"Fuck, okay, toaster. So it didn't cross your mind that if you're gonna harbor a filthy, drunk human, they might — how do I put this — require human amenities?" Gavin's voice wavers in pitch, mocking.

RK remains silent. Gavin drains the rest of his water.

"It really didn't," he concludes.

"I was... concerned that you would not wake up if I simply let the taxi drive you home," the android states. "Bringing you here until you could be trusted to take care of yourself was the better option."

Gavin wants to give him more shit for it, but his gaze falls to the jacket pooled in his lap, and to his own, folded neatly to serve as an impromptu pillow.

The fight leaves him.

His hand squeezes his belt one last time, just to chase off the last of the fear coursing through his veins.

"So you put me in the recovery position on your goddamn floor and watched me for — what time is it, anyway?" He scrambles for his phone, but his jacket pockets only hold his keys and wallet.

"Five hours, eighteen minutes," RK says. "It is 5:47AM, Sunday, April—“

"Okay, fuck. I’m going home. A man needs an actual bed to recover from bullshit like that."

Gavin ignores RK’s brows pinching minutely and makes himself get up and take a cab home. He's too sick to worry about his robot partner putting him up while he was passed out after the shittiest night off he's had in years — all he wants is to purge, shower, feed his cats, and collapse into bed with curtains drawn against the morning sun.

His doorbell rings before he can pull the covers up and pass the fuck out.

"No," he mumbles into his pillow. "Fuck off."

As if to spite him for that attitude, the goddamn ringer goes off again.

And doesn't stop.

And still doesn't stop.

"CockSUCKER!" Gavin bellows and gets up.

The buzzer falls silent when he enters the hallway. Good. Maybe the soggy piece of shit outside does have a shred of self-preservation.

Gavin all but tears the door from its hinges to open it and directs the full force of his fuming at the intruder.

"You left your phone behind," RK900 offers in the smallest voice Gavin's ever heard out of an android — and he's seen plenty being intimidated by the very murder machine before him and his predecessor alike.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters. "Who the fuck taught you manners?"

"Connor, for the most part," the bot replies, almost sheepishly. "...I would ask you the same question, but you have no manners to ask about."

Gavin blinks at him dumbly.

"I'm never drinking again. Call an ambulance, I'm hallucinating that you're sassing me."

The corner of RK's mouth twitches and a faint crackle emits from his throat. "Based on your personality, an insult seemed the quickest way to defuse the situation," he offers, deadpan as ever. "Your phone, detective."

He lifts one hand, holding the device — and then the other, with a paper bag hanging from his long fingers. "I also brought you breakfast, to make up for my subpar lodgings. And because I doubted you'd be in any state to prepare a suitable meal—"

"I get it, asshole," Gavin says, stepping aside to let the bot in. "Idiot meatbag can't take care of himself, so you did your research, hm?"

"I did," Nines admits softly.

If Gavin weren't still sick and at least half pissed, he'd find it adorable. As he is, he realizes too late that he just invited RK home.

He forces half of a sandwich and most of a disgusting looking smoothie down, and miraculously, his stomach settles. He swallows the ibuprofen RK places before him with gratitude.

Mind and body placated, he finds it in himself to make an effort to be civil to his guest.

"I'm going to sleep all day," he mutters, fiddling with a napkin on his kitchen counter. "Don't feel like dying either, so you can go now, I guess. But, uh." He looks at the android, whose gaze barely left him since he opened the door. He should probably find it far more unsettling than he does, but it feels — okay. RK is just like that. "Listen — I owe you one for last night, so. Thanks for looking out for me." He cracks a shitty grin. "Bad at it as you were."

RK's mouth twitches. "Not at all, detective. You were in danger. I am glad you trusted me to help. I hope we both learned from it."

"Yeah, I'll watch my drinks," Gavin grumbles, half-hearted.

"I meant that you can rely on me," RK says carefully. "We are partners, after all."

Several responses come and die on Gavin's lips.

"Alright," he concedes. "But I'm not letting you watch me sleep again. And — did you seriously hack the bar's cameras to keep tabs on me? Because that's illegal, or some shit. I hallucinated that. Drugs, you know. Plausible deniability. Don't do that again."

"Of course, detective," RK agrees, and there's that quirk of a smile again. "I hope you rest well. I will see you at work tomorrow."

"Yeah, you know where the door is." Gavin bites down on a smile as he says it. "And learn some contractions."

"I'll think about it," RK says.

The door clicks shut behind him.

Gavin wonders briefly if he'll think that this interaction was a fever dream when he wakes up.

Just before he drifts off, a small part of him decides that he hopes not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [here's](https://twitter.com/chromaberrant/status/1190994649764241408?s=20) the thread, if you're interested in the unedited version that for some reason Blew Up(TM) as i was writing it. ;p

**Author's Note:**

> [here's the tweeter](https://twitter.com/chromaberrant). I can also be found in the [New ERA discord server](https://discord.gg/eYJ2f8s). ✨


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